Lesson 49b

to a lesson 49 and we had gotten down to question 3 so we talked about the mystery and we talked about the fullness of the Gentiles coming in and now in the verse it says who is Israel so the verse somebody read I think verse 25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel be saved, as it is written. The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. So who is all of Israel? Who are they? Jews. Which Jews? Believing Jews. Is it believing Jews?

Historically, what's going to happen when we get to this point? There's going to be... What's the next great event in the history of the world? The rapture of the church, right? And then for seven years, from the time of the rapture, there's an intervening period, and at the end of seven years, the Lord Jesus comes to the planet as king, and he brings us with him. Now at that point, what's been going on those seven years, basically? The destruction of the earth. Destruction of the earth. People are dying by the millions. And in three and a half years, like the word says, if the Lord doesn't stop, the likelihood of anybody surviving what's going on is limited.

So at seven years from the rapture, three and a half years from the time that the tribulation begins, the Lord returns. Now, what does he find here when he comes back? There's no church here because the church is with him, right? The church comes with him.

So who's on the planet? Two groups of people. Who are they? 10,000 Jews. Okay? New believers and unbelievers. Gentiles and Jews. We haven't gotten to believers and non-believers yet. The distinction is back. The Jewish nation is now in focus again. Within the Jewish nation, at the time that the Lord comes to the planet, are they believers? Because... Some of them are. Huh? Some of them are. Okay, do you think some of them or all of them? Some of them. Definitely not all. Not all?

You think a lot of Jews are going to die in the tribulation? So, if he's talking about that all Israel will be saved, is he talking individual people or the nation? The nation. So will he save those members of the nation who are not believers? Not necessarily. So what happens to them? They go to Aurora. What happens to them?

The verse says that all Israel will be saved. And I'm interested in what does he mean by all Israel? And all Israel is at that particular time when he comes and thus all Israel will be saved just as it is written. The deliverer will come from Zion and he'll remove the ungodliness from Jacob. And Jacob is the same as all Israel. So I think you've got to decide, I think what we have to decide is when he's talking about all Israel, are all the Jews that are on the planet at the time of Christ's return believe that He's the Messiah?

Yes. Every one of them? I would say yes. I find that hard to believe. Why? Because as a nation, they've never all believed. You know, and it's just from the evidence of history. Right. All 144,000 that are chosen will be saved. But I don't think the whole nation will be saved. How about if the whole nation only has 144,000 people in it at that point? I would agree with you except he says all of Israel. All of them.

Maybe the Lord kills off all the unbelieving Jews. He sure did it to them in the desert. He also said he's going to have his word written in their hearts. And so all of those, whoever they are, they're going to have the remaining ones will have it written, so they will be saved.

Yeah, so I'm of a mind, and you can talk me out of it if you can, that every Jew that's alive on the planet at the time that Christ returns, which may be as few as 144,000, which would fit the 12 tribes, 12,000 members of each tribe, will all be believers and all that's talked about in the covenant with the Jews will all be true of them. There won't be unbelieving Jews at that point. And so he can say that all Israel will be saved. The nation represented by those 144,000 people will be all Israel at that time. We can't imagine that there would only be 144,000 Jews left, but I can. If you've ever spent any time reading about what this three and a half years is going to be like, people are going to be hiding under rocks. The Lord said that you have never seen such a day like that three and a half years is going to be.

And if you read about the bowls of wrath that He releases on the earth, there's no place to hide. And then they've got these cool little creatures that bite you and you want to die, but you can't. They come out of the bowels of the earth. I mean, this is crazy.

That's my thought, and I don't know if you've ever thought through that, because I think you couldn't have a nation of Israel that is talked about in this verse that some are believers and some aren't, because he's saying all of Israel will be saved.

And the deliverer will come out of Zion. Who's the deliverer? It's the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in order for them to be saved, they have to believe He is who He is. And when He comes, He's going to come in glory. It isn't going to be like it was the last time. Everybody in the planet is going to know who He is and He's here. See that? No arguments, huh? And He'll be their Messiah? Yeah, He will. Sure. Anul says that most of Israel will perish under the divine judgment. I think that's probably right. I think that's probably right.

We've talked about the remnant, they will be the remnant. And there won't be a non-remnant at that point. Now, added to that, those are going to be men and women, Right? So they're going to have offsprings during the Millennial Kingdom. Are their offsprings going to be some of these elect Jews?

What do you think? In other words, if... You're talking about during the... During the Millennial Kingdom. No, they'll be born with sin natures. And what will be required of them? To believe. To believe who the Messiah is. Yeah. With the Gentiles. It's the same way with the Gentiles. Let's see.

The Lord Jesus told his disciples that the present unbelieving generation of Israel would not pass away until all the terrible judgments he foretold would be fulfilled, but that the generation after the flesh will pass away, we know, and the believing generation take their place. What's the believing generation? I think it's 144,000. you know, because they have never believed.

So, you know, the thing about the verse you're saying, it's written on their heart, the law's written on their heart. So, is there a qualifier on that that says only the first generation? Yeah, well, you know, that's the question I've just asked. If, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Jewish remnant have a child, Does that child show up with the law written on his heart?

I don't think so. Yeah, because there's no need of a synagogue or anything because it's written on their heart. I don't know, I'm just thinking is it the first generation only? It seems like it's throughout the millennium because they don't have a temple or anything. Won't there be a temple in Jerusalem? I think there will be. It doesn't say for the first generation.

But it does say all. Yeah, it does. We say that by all Israel being saved, Paul means the individual salvation of each member of the nation of Israel living at the time of the second advent. He agrees with us. I just don't know, it seems like it should be written on their hearts throughout the millennium.

Zachariah 13.1 predicts the cleansing of Israel from the sins in the words In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sins and uncleanness." In other words, He'll sanctify them before they go in the kingdom, before they enter into it. Kind of cool that He's doing it that way. It shows that it's an elect situation, these 144,000. I'm glad that we're going to be spectators and not involved in that tribulation process.

Now, any other questions about that? Okay, question four. What are the three aspects of Christ's return? A couple of three things. The first one is the rapture of the church. The second one is the judgment of the nations. And the third one is the deliverance of Israel. So when Christ comes, one of the things that's going to happen, He's going to judge the nations. Nations mean Gentiles, right?

So those three aspects are things that are going to be part of Christ's return. By the way, which none of those things have happened yet, so those who are amillennialists are nuts. They're not able to connect the dots in terms of what the tribulation in the kingdom period is.

Mike, could you repeat those, at least the second? The three aspects of Christ's second coming. The first one is the rapture of the church. That's the first thing that's got to happen. The next one is the judgment of the nations. And the third is deliverance of Israel. Okay, thank you. The creeds of Christendom have taught one general judgment and thus they overlook the essential things.

First, the special relationship of Christ coming to his real church. It's special that Christ is going to come and take us. The rapture is a really important time for us. I mean, I don't know of anybody in this room that isn't looking forward to that. Your motives might be suspect because you want to just get out of this terrible place we live in. but to see the Lord, He's going to come and get us.

How many think that that's pretty close? I think so too. I think so too. At least it's a hope. I think even believers in the first century had that same hope. So the second is the relationship of His coming to the nation of Israel and to the elect spared remnant who will be the real Israel. How about this judgment thing? Is there going to be a judgment at that point? What do you think? And who is he going to judge? Gentiles? Whoever is left on the planet. Yeah, they will be judged.

Gee whiz, I wonder During that, won't we be judged at the Bema Seat of Christ? Before that, yeah. Right after the Rapture. Yeah, I think that's the first event for us in eternity, is the Bema Judgment. I was reading the other day that the word Bema comes from a platform of judgment in Ephesus, or no, in Corinth. It was called the Bema. And it was a place where people got judged.

It was outdoors, and it's just a platform. But I think you have to look at the beam of judgment as a place of rewards, not a place of losing anything. I don't think... Are we going to all be sad there that we didn't get more than we should have? Just the things that are judged are the works that were not Are you going to face your sins there? No, you're not.

I've always thought that was really cool that God has set it up so that everything that's not of Him at the end of the day is gone. And what are you left with? Him. With nothing between you. I used to have this argument years ago in the men's Bible study with Ken Marr. He used to say, well, you know, through all eternity we will be thankful that God forgave us our sins. And I said, nonsense. We won't care about that. He said, yeah, we will. I said, no, we won't. We won't ever remember any of that. So Lord Jesus will be so attractive to us that that's all we'll ever want to think about.

We don't want to be thinking about, oh, I coulda, woulda, shoulda, you know, or I missed this, that, or the other thing. And there won't be any jealousy or envy if one of you has way more blessings than somebody else, you'll be overjoyed that they have what they have. No one will say, oh, if I could have done just more, I could be like Alan. Isn't that how it should be today? It should be that. The problem is that you can't eliminate the sin of nature, so it isn't that way today.

But as Christ lives in each one of us, our joy for other people's spiritual success is a really cool thing to have, I think. Don't you find it pretty cool when someone you have known for a while is taking steps and growing? It's a really exciting thing. You see the Spirit of God working in somebody's heart and you see it change. There used to be this issue and it's not an issue anymore. I think it's just really neat. It's just proof to me that the Spirit of God is doing His job. It's kind of like if God gave us all a car, They go a million miles an hour at the Beeman seat. Another guy go a million miles an hour plus a little more. It's kind of like we're getting a car that goes a million miles an hour. That made sense.

So let's talk about the restoration of Israel. There's divine favor connected with, as Courtney pointed out, the New Covenant, the national taking away their sins, so their sins won't be an issue. This presupposes the absence from the earth of the Church, for God cannot have two testimonies on the earth at the same time. Now it's interesting. We'll be with Him, but we're not going to be the Church anymore.

Do you understand that? What are we going to be? Yeah, and that's different. Are we going to be involved in the Millennial Kingdom? Are we going to have something to do? What are we going to do? Get to clean up after the rest of them? What are we going to do? I mean, we're just not going to sit around.

We'll co-rule with Him. What's that? We'll co-rule with Christ. Yeah, what's that look like? I don't know exactly. There's going to be a lot of us. There will be way more of us than there are human beings on the planet at first. So what are we going to do? We haven't thought about that.

And Cheryl's right, we're going to rule and reign with them. Well, what does that mean? If I'm ruling and reigning, I'm involved in the ruling and reigning. How is the Lord Jesus going to take care of sin in the Millennial Kingdom? And who do you think will be involved in that?

Us. I think we could read minds, maybe? We're going to know. We have the mind of Christ. If somebody sins, we'll know. And we'll restore them. I don't know how that's going to possibly work, because it doesn't fathom the way our minds work today. But I think that's what we'll be involved in.

It's crazy, isn't it? We get to carry big sticks. I'm not so sure if it's a big stick as much as it is a restoration thing. You know? Because I don't perceive that the Millennial King and Mayukas people will get hammered. Some will die, but not a lot. A lot of people live a whole thousand years.

Won't we redress in his glory? Say that again? Won't we redress in his glory? Yeah, we will. And whatever our involvement is, it will be done from that glory. I mean, the Lord Jesus himself isn't going to hammer anybody. He already did it before he came. So we'll be doing what he's doing, which I think is restoration and maybe evangelization. I don't know. But the other thing that's cool is that people will know that we are the bride of Christ just by looking at us, because we'll be glorified. Israel won't be. All of you are going to look a lot better than you looked this morning. We lost an hour of sleep. What's that? We lost an hour of sleep. That's true.

The scripture says there's neither male nor female in the church. Well, I'm happy about that. Every time I hear that, I think of what was his name? He didn't like that because he didn't want to be a girl the rest of eternity. So with the church being now the body of Christ, Israel will be the focus of what goes on in the earth and everything will happen through them as a nation.

They'll be restored. The church has been caught up will be gone, will be a glorified bride at this point. Okay? And the deliverer will be in Jerusalem. So, it's going to be cool. I'm not sure that I know very much about how it's going to operate other than the fact that with the vanity of the earth being delivered and the earth prospering and all of the promises made, By God, two, starting with Abraham, will all be in full play. It's going to be an interesting place.

But it still won't be suitable to you and me as the bride. Why not? Because we're not of the earth. The earth doesn't want us. That's right. We're not earthly people. We're heavenly people. Question five, what is the difference between the first covenant God made with Israel and the one he will make with them on their return, on his return? He says it's not going to be according to the covenant he made with their fathers. Why is it going to be different?

Well, let's talk about the first covenant. Where did he start? Abrahamic covenant. Yeah, he starts with Abraham. How does that go? What are the three things of the Abrahamic covenant? Land, seed, and blessing. Land, seed, and blessing. Then we get to Moses. And now he makes a legal covenant with Moses.

What's that all about? The law. And the law is, if you do this, I will bless you. If you don't do this, I will curse you. And cursing doesn't mean he's going to hammer you, it just means he withdraws his blessing. Okay? So those are the covenants, or the original covenants, expanded through Isaac and Jacob. Land, seed, land, seed, and blessing. What's the third one? Blessing. Blessing. But this new covenant that he's going to make with the house of Israel will be different. What will be different about it? What's the number one thing that will be different? Seed should be different. Hmm? Seed. Seed be different?

Well, Christ will have long ago come, so... Okay. Jeremiah 31, 31. He's going to write the law on our hearts. Yeah. So, notice that there aren't any ifs in the New Covenant. There's a lot of ifs in the first one. But in the new one, there aren't any. But he told Abraham, I'm going to do this whether you believe me or not. And it took them, you know, they never did measure up. But the new covenant with Israel will be something God will do in His grace and mercy. He'll just do it. However, during the millennial kingdom, the Jews will live by the Sermon on the Mount.

Is that a covenant? What do you think? You know when the Lord said, blessed is he who does this for he will, and blessed is he who does this for he will, and blessed is he who does this for his is. So how does that square with the covenant of the law in your heart? Maybe a better question is, if I'm a Jew in those days and I have the law written in my heart, am I going to perform exactly all the time? What do you think?

I'm thinking so. You don't think so? I think so, because it's part of me. It's part of me, it's in my heart. Well, think about it. I know I'll turn this off, cancel. You and I have the Holy Spirit, right? That's a greater thing than the law written on your heart. But I know you sinned last week at least once. So will the Jew sin with the law written in his heart? I think so. Still have a sin nature, right? He's got a sin nature.

There's still going to be rebellion against it. Sure. Even though Christ is right there in the midst. Yeah. There'll be an understanding that the work of Christ has paid the penalty for all the sins from all time. Forgiveness is readily available. And even if you have the law written in your heart, all it means is that you don't have to go to school and learn it. It's there.

I perceive it like a second language. Those of you who have learned a second language, there was a time when you thought you'd never get it, but then one day you got it. And you could understand it, and you could speak it, and you could converse in it, and you could think in it. I had a friend long years ago who, when I first got out of school, I worked for Sears, and he was in the, we were in the training program. Anyway, he was bilingual. He could speak Spanish and English. And as his career went on, he lived in Central America and South America and Chile.

And one time I talked to him, I said, what are you thinking? He said, well, it depends on where I am. He said, like when he was in Chile for a long time, and he said, you know, I'm there a little while, and I start thinking in Spanish. And I speak in Spanish. But then when I come back to the States, in a couple of months, it goes back to English again. So he said, it depends on what you're familiar with.

I was talking to him on the phone one time, in Columbia, Barranquilla, Columbia. He was the head of something down there. He was in a warehouse somewhere, and we were talking, and he said, just a minute, and he held the phone out, and he ripped some guy's Spanish, and back to English.

So, you know, the law written on your heart, the Jew will know what it is, and he'll know all the nuances of it, not just the Ten Commandments. It'll be the law, the mosaic system. So, it'll be interesting to see, just because it's written on their heart, will it be performed?

Isn't it? I mean, I think the equivalency now of us, we have the Word, we have the indwelling Spirit. Yes, we do. But do we believe everything? Yeah. I mean, we know it. It's right there in the Word. I mean, they would, instead of having it written, they have it in their heart. We have it written. We have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, and yet the Holy Spirit's convict. convicting and convincing us of these truths. And we have it written, so I mean, I think it would be the same way. They'll have it just on their heart, but with the sin nature and the, you know.

That's interesting. You know, as we've talked this morning, I haven't really taken that into consideration. I have to think about that. Does it mean that, does it influence them almost instinctively? Yeah. Do they get in a car and automatically drive 35 miles an hour? You know, do they, You know, their attitude and the performance of the law, perfect all the time.

I wouldn't, I would think no. Because there's still going to be sin on the earth. There's still going to be people who do sin. You know. Well, if there weren't, you couldn't have Armageddon. You wouldn't have the people rising up suddenly. Be growing in the meantime. Yeah. Just the basic difference in those two covenants is that blessing in the first covenant depended on man's obedience. Okay? But it will be sovereign mercy at last extended to the whole spared nation. It won't depend on their obedience. They will obey.

But I don't think it means that they'll obey 24-7 all the time. I think Dr. Schaefer says that it would be more difficult to abide by what they have to abide by in the Millennium than the Mosaic Covenant. Yeah, it would be way more because it's the... How do I say this? When you already have the blessing, and like the Sermon on the Mount, To live that kind of a life, even though the law is there, it puts a greater onus on you. Not only is it performance, but it's an attitude. And under the law, sometimes attitude didn't matter. You just had to do it.

So question six, how is Israel an enemy of the gospel? Well, is Israel an enemy to the Gospel? Verse 28, yes. From the standpoint of the Gospel, they are enemies for your sake. So how are they? How are they enemies to the Gospel? They rejected the Messiah. That's exactly right. And what else? Crucifying. Crucifying. I'll tell you, I'll read what we said.

The attitude of God with regard to Israel is determined by, or with reference to, the gospel and its rejection of the same. In view of this rejection, He counts Israel as an enemy. You get that? Because they reject the gospel, He counts them as an enemy. The attitude of God towards Israel with reference to the elect remnant in that nation is that those whom He counts as enemies of his by reason of the rejection of the gospel, are beloved ones, and this for the sake of the fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with whom he made an everlasting covenant." Anybody, anybody who rejects the gospel is an enemy of the gospel. You can't reject it and be somewhere in the middle. You're an enemy. It's real simple.

Does God ever change his mind when it comes to his gifts and his calling? Gifts means a favor which one receives without any merit on his own. The word is charisma, which is grace. The word gift is Dora. These gifts, according to Godet, are not the moral or intellectual qualifications with which Israel was endowed for its mission. in the world but the privileges of grace spoken of in chapter 9 verse 4.

Then calling in the New Testament is a technical sense of the divine invitation to embrace salvation in the kingdom of God. Here it refers to a calling in the modern sense of a vocation or a career assigned to anyone by God, by Him. It is his authoritative invitation to a part of the messianic kingdom. So when the invitation comes to the Jews, are they going to reject it? These individual Jews who have the gift and the calling?

They won't. They won't. And from Israel, what God has promised Israel can never be withdrawn. None of it. And so what he says he's going to do and what's going to happen during the time of the Millennial Kingdom, he'll never withdraw that. It will come to play. And it will be by his grace alone.

And we understand that as well as anybody because some of you have matured past the point where you know you didn't do anything to save yourself. That was supposed to be a joke. The words without repentance, it means to repent oneself or to regret, in other words, to change your mind. It signifies a change here, a change of mind concerning something.

So the idea that the gifts and calling of God aren't subject to change of mind is what he's saying. When God offers a gift and a calling, He never changes His mind. No matter who He sends the gift to. And it doesn't mean that they'll receive the gift, but he isn't going to change. Okay? He will not change his mind regarding his chosen people, the Jews, and their God-oriented mission and destiny.

I think that's really cool because that's one of the issues of a growing believer is trusting God, believing Him when He says certain things about who we are, what we have, and where we are. rely on our experience more than what he says. And it comes down to, at the end of the day, thus saith the Lord. If he says it, that's it.

And it doesn't mean that I have to have the experience in order to verify whether it's real or not. I just believe him. And I believe him. Why? Because he's proven himself faithful to me. When he says so, and I believe him, he's always been faithful. That's the same way with Israel. He doesn't change his mind, ever.

Okay? So, question eight. What does it mean, quote, but now you have been shown mercy because of their disobedience? Who's the you? Gentiles. I'm sorry? The Gentiles. And who's the their disobedience? The Jews. okay so the Gentiles is summed up in the word disobedient to God Gentiles always our present position in the words have obtained mercy by their Israel's disobedience I thought we were more special than that but it took their disobedience for God to come and offer us anything But why did he do that? Why did he do it that way? He told us a few verses ago. Why did he do it? What's he going to use that for in terms of Israel?

Make them jealous. Are any of you very close with Jewish people that are pretty serious about Judaism? Do you know anybody like that? Like somebody who goes to synagogue every week in studies, and like the Hasidic Jews, they do have an attitude that they're superior to every other person on the planet, that they are God's chosen people.

And that they look down on us Gentiles as just, we have no purpose. Sounds like the Catholics. But the Catholics waver, where the Jews don't. You know, we really are Gentiles, dogs to them. And so when God shows mercy to us, I think it surprises them.

There's a lady that, where I live, lives there, and she's Jewish. Her name is Miriam. She goes to temple every Saturday, but she says, I'm not an Orthodox Jew. So anyway, But she's been coming to Bible trivia now and she's curious, even though it's just details and stuff like that. And she's curious to know what the New Testament says. So I'm going to bring my Bible the next time we have it, next Wednesday, a week from this week, anyway.

And look up those verses so she can see, because she was in disbelief. Oh no, that's not right. That's right, and even when you show them to her, she may still say that's not right. Well, yeah, that's true. Was that the first bell? Yeah. They don't have the Holy Spirit to enable them to understand. That's true. They don't set aside. Yeah.

Do you think that because of, in the tribulation, because the Jews are, they realize what God has done to the Gentiles and because of their jealousy that all of them will realize that this is the Messiah and become saved and believe? To answer that, I would say that if God is weaning down the Jews to 144,000, they will. Oh, absolutely. If there's more than that around, or Jews that are not believers at that point, how do you unharden their hearts?

They have an attitude. It has to be an act of God. God has to do this. Yeah, He does. It can't be the individual, it has to be... But you can take a look at times when God was working with individuals and no matter how faithful He was to them, they never came around.

I mean, all those Jews that died out in the desert after 40 years, it appears to me that very few, if any, of them changed their mind. It took a whole new generation of their offsprings who were enough of believers to actually enter into the promised land. He wouldn't let them go in if they didn't believe.

They changed their mind immediately afterwards, but then they were slaughtered. 3,000 of them got slaughtered. They thought, oh yeah, we were wrong. Let's go do this. They chose a few thousand people and it just didn't work. It had to be the whole nation or none.

Yeah, it's really interesting. We were studying Genesis Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they knew what God had promised them, but they couldn't keep their hands off. They all wanted to get involved in the carrying out of whatever the promise was, and they screwed it all up. At the end of the day, God's promise was in place. He got it done.

They just wouldn't walk by faith. They walked, well, a little bit of faith, but you need some help from us. And they would totally mess it up. And they paid dearly for it in terms of angst and families and stuff like that. But like Jacob didn't need to, you know, do his trickery with his dad to get the inheritance. He could have just left it alone and God would have taken care of it. But no, they had to work the deal. And it caused, all the way until today, there's unrest with them because of what happened back then. There's no trust, you know.

I thought it interesting that Jacob had to have four wives to get twelve sons. Ishmael only had one wife. He became a great nation. Not only four wives, he had two wives with two maids. The one he really loved, her womb was sealed until at the end. I mean, it's really interesting what God did. you know, and how that caused tension.

Oh, there was all kinds of tension in there. Yeah. Marriage was a goofy marriage. Yeah. Well, question nine, I actually have two whole pages of answers, three pages of answers on question nine. Can you spot the difference between Gentile disobedience and Jewish disobedience?

I'm going to have to save this until next week. So yeah, let's do that. We'll finish it up next week, and then Courtney's going to do starting Chapter 12. Okay, let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your blessings towards us. Pray that we would realize them, rest in them, and rest in your Son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his name. Amen.